1827 Wine and spirit adulterators unmasked

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on a fair business, even if inclined to do so, as the Advertising and Placarding Gin-shop-keepers, and Wholesale Dealers, by their wonderfully cheap prices and pompous assertions, are sure to attract that description of persons as purchasers, who form the principal means of enabling them to adul- terate with the least possible risk of detection, that is to say, such as buy only small quantities at a time, and with whom quality is quite a secondary consideration, so long as the price is low. With respect to the measures adopted to evade discovery from the Excise Officers, the evidence in the trial alluded to, at the commencement of this Treatise,* will best explain some of the artifices * From the Times Journal of December 1, 1826. In the Court of Exchequer, November 30, 1826. The Attorney- General versus Oldfield. The information consisted of four counts, the first for procuring a permit, under pretence of transferring a certain quantity of Wine to a Mr. Buckby it would appear by the evidence, that Mr. Buckby was not the purchaser of any such quantity of Wine, and that the permit had not been returned to the Excise Office. The second count was of a similar nature : in this, the supposed purchaser was Mrs. Oldfield, the mother of the defendant. The third count arose out of the preceding ones : it complained of these permits not being returned to the Excise Office. The fourth count alleged the adulteration of certain Wines, the mixing of Cape with Sherry/ and selling the mixture as pure Sherry. The first witnesses which the Attorney-General called, were several persons, connected with the Excise, who proved that two permits, in the names of Buckby and Mrs. Oldfield, were obtained, and never returned to the Excise Office. Mr. Buckby, examined by the Attorney-General. He (Mr. B.)